Author's Note: Sorry this chapter is so short, but I wanted to get something up at least. That way, I have an incentive to keep working on it. ;) Enjoy! I don't own Harry Potter or anything related to it. (Wouldn't that be something, though?)
It was late at night, past her bedtime, but she didn't care. Any other member of the self-dubbed "Potter Generation" would understand. The quick, "Good night," which actually meant, "Please just leave the room as soon as you possibly can so I can finish my reading while pretending to be asleep," had already long passed. Now she lay curled up on the right side of her bed, propped up against two down pillows, her auburn hair fanned out against those pillows. The lamp was lit on its low setting, providing just enough light to read the print upon the thick book's pages. Still, she strained her crystal blue eyes as she read each word and felt as if her eyelids were heavier than stone as she forced her eyes to keep focus and fight the lack of sleep that caused the words to jump about the page.
For someone who had loved the Harry Potter saga so much, it even surprised Jessica Ryder herself that she was completely clueless as to what was to come after the Order of the Phoenix, even though it had been released five years prior to that eerie night. You see, she had begun reading the books at the tender age of four when the first book of the series had been published in the States. At first, her mother had read them to her at her bedside, a chapter or two a night, and Jessica would drift to sleep and join the world that seemed to lift off the pages. But, as can be easily deduced, the anticipation was too much to handle. As her reading ability became stronger, Jessica would often read to herself after her mother had left the room, eager to absorb as much as possible of the magical tale. As much as the books affected her, so did all else she had read. The sudden influence of reading in her life had caused Jessica to devour every book in sight without a single glance back, never allowing the information to settle, never allowing her mind the proper time to digest the meal that had been her book. Reading at such a hungry pace, Jessica was able to love Harry Potter, but never develop the close connection so many would come to have. So, when the movies started to come out after the fourth book, she stopped reading the books.
She had friends who had urged her to continue the series, but there were always obstacles in the way: school, family, boys, other books. Now, at fourteen, she was faced with another one of life's friendly obstacles—starting high school. Neither content nor depressed, she simply felt apathetic towards this new start. How she longed that the acceptance letter to her highly coveted prep school had been instead a letter from Hogwarts.
The seventh book had only just come out, so Jessica, feeling a sudden pang of regret due to all she had missed in the Potter world, had decided to properly read the books. For almost a week and a half she had been rereading books one through four and had almost finished book five. Jessica was engrossed in the action taking place in the Department of Mysteries. The contrast between the world of flying spells and imminent death and the world in which this gently girl lay was immeasurable, it seemed. Any onlooker would have seen a peaceful girl reading with a dreamy look in her glazed over and droopy eyes, the picture of an overtired angel on a mission. Such an onlooker would never have guessed the battle raging on in her imagination.
With her mind stuck in the foreboding aisles of prophecies, Jessica could not help that her overactive imagination was sending her messages that the same eeriness existed in her own world; she had the eerie feeling that she was being watched, and her thoughts began to wander and wonder.
Silly. Don't let the books get to your head. If too much Potter starts affecting you, you'll have to wait a while before you can touch the books again.
But there was no mistaking the eerie feeling of the night. It almost felt as if the lamplight she could see outside her window had been playfully putting itself out, and then relighting itself just as Jessica turned to make sure that what she had seen in her peripheral vision was true. An awkward hooting was outside her window, but owls hadn't been in the neighborhood since she had first moved in, when the neighborhood was new and filled with the empty dirt lots that had been so abundant in Florida at the time. She could have sworn that dark shadows kept flying upwards near the entrance of her house. Occasionally, these shadows had a creepy glow to them. It was as if they were evil, but all the same checking up on her to make sure she was well. As sick as she felt seeing these shadows, she was able to convince herself that they were figments of her imagination, and, bringing forth the happiness that could be found from reading, she urged herself to read on into the early morning.
Author's Note: I hope this chapter gave you a little taste of my writing style, though it's not quite at the meat yet. More to come, though, as I'm on vacation! ;)